Analysis of Grid Connected Hybrid Micro-Grid with Different Utility Tariffs

A typical microgrid is consists of interconnected load with renewable, non-renewable distributed generation sources and energy storage devices to manage load demand. The utilization of solar renewable energy sources offers many advantages, such as decreasing environmental emissions and enhancing cost economy. The optimal design of the microgrid includes identifying the most suitable configuration from all possible configuration and choosing the suitable capacities of the storage devices and the energy sources. In this case study, the grid-connected microgrid is designing based on the minimum energy cost and net present cost. Therefore, the proposed microgrid shows more benefits with respect to technical and cost economy performances relative to base case system. A case study of NIT Durgapur system is presented to design and analyze utility grid-connected microgrid systems, including the two optional tariffs. Finally, the comparative analysis is also presented for the proposed microgrid system.

I. Introduction

At present, the use of renewable energy sources are more auspicious in power generation to develop more efficient and reliable microgrid system based on the renewable energy system due to exhaustible nature of fossil fuel and global warming. The solar PV is one of the most abundant renewable sources available in nature and the combination of solar PV with energy storage systems including generator as power backup based microgrid connected to main grid have great potential to provide better quality and more reliable power to customers than a conventional system based on a single utility. The microgrid may be standalone or off grid type or grid-connected type which are self-sustainable energy systems and can maintain system reliability and resiliency. The standalone or off-grid or isolated microgrid requires the sufficient storage and power backup system to maintain the reliability. The grid connected microgrid can supply the power to local loads and the grid by employing the net metering or net purchased power from grid approach. Techno-economic-environmental analysis of isolated microgrid system of bangladesh island is proposed in [1], which conclude that the proposed hybrid microgrid system based on solar PV and wind is efficient to reduce the high per unit cost of energy and increase the economic and technical feasibility of microgrid. The microgrid performances based on cost effectiveness and sustainable energy management with intelligent demand response approach using artificial bee colony and quasi static algorithm to minimize total cost of energy of microgrid system are presented in [2].